I made this speech at the States Meeting of July 2012. I was in favour of the Requete to bring in electronic voting and against the amendment to have the States Assembly and Constitution Committee go away and do yet more research on an appropriate system. Unfortunately, the amendment came in, which will mean more time and resources are spent on what is a very simple issue.
Sir, without electronic voting we will continue to be an analogue States in a digital world. This amendment simply appears a delaying tactic to force us to expend time, money and yet more paper on a report telling us what we already know.
We are talking about great accountability and transparency. Yes, there is a cost, £20,000 max I believe, but producing a report will only add to that cost and, unnecessarily, in my opinion.
I used an electronic voting system in Westminster recently. I am happy to report that it is simple to use, easy to understand and quick to produce results.
I also took the opportunity during the recent historic cricket match against our Jersey counteparts to ask our visitors what they thought of electronic voting, bearing in mind they have been using it for the last 8 years.. They were unanimously of the view that they would not be without it. Not only are the results fully recorded and made publicly available without any manual input, it has also saved a lot of Parliamentary time.
We don’t need another report. There have been enough prevarications and debate on this issue in the past. We’ve seen today that there are bigger issues we need to deal with. This States just needs to get things done.
I therefore do not support this amendment.